Man drowns in BMC pit at Tilak Nagar, body found next day

A 40-year-old man died after falling into a deep pit in Chembur, leading to an FIR against the contractor for negligence amid BMC's lack of safety measures.

MUMBAI: A 40-year-old Nerul resident, Raju Tulshidas Gawande, died after falling into a pit dug by the sewerage operations department of the BMC at Tilak Nagar near Chembur on Wednesday. The Tilak Nagar police have registered an FIR against the contractor for negligence.

Man drowns in BMC pit at Tilak Nagar, body found next day

Acting senior inspector Dilip Mane of the Tilak Nagar police said that Gawande used to stay earlier at P L Lokhande Marg and had friends in Chembur. “He was walking on the road near Building No 43 in Tilak Nagar when he fell into a water pit,” he said. “The contractor employed by the BMC had not taken enough precautions. Gawande probably fell at around 2.30 am, and the body was spotted at 10 am on Wednesday. The pit is around 30 feet deep, and we had to summon the fire brigade to remove Gawande and shift him to hospital.”

The local ward office, deputy municipal commissioner and even the BMC’s disaster management department were unaware of the accident till 10 pm on Wednesday. Vishwas Mote, assistant commissioner, BMC, did not respond to calls from this correspondent. Neither did chief engineer P S Gawali of the sewerage operations department.

Some BMC officers claimed that Gawande was drunk and thus fell into the pit. However, Mane said that the police did not know about this. “We took Gawande out of the pit and shifted him to hospital, where he was declared dead,” he said. “We don’t know if he was in an inebriated state or not. The post-mortem will be done on Thursday.”

Mane said the BMC had not put up any warning board at the site, and there was no CCTV around to ascertain how Gawande fell into the pit.

There have been three such accidents in the city in the last four months. Earlier this month, seven-year-old Ravi Ujjwal Singh fell into a pit of water dug by MSRTC in Kurla depot and died. In September, 45-year-old Vimal Anil Gaikwad met his death when he fell into an overflowing drain at Marol. In August, 18-year-old Sahil Ansari drowned in a quarry at Vaishali Nagar in Goregaon East. BMC commissioner Bhushan Gagrani had set up a committee after the Marol death to look into the causes and suggest measures on how such incidents could be prevented.